Phenolic Table Saw Insert Kit

Overview

Make your own zero-clearance throat plate and save! This kit includes two phenolic plates for only a little more than the cost of one pre-cut plate! Just rout to the size you need with a Shear Cutting Flush Trim Bit (#24740, sold separately). Also works great for band saws, scroll saws, jigs and fences. Phenolic is extremely hard for optimum durability and provides friction-free sliding. It's so hard that traditional drill bits have a hard time getting through. No problem! Just use our exclusive Phenolic Countersink Drill Bit (#34423, sold separately) for the leveler holes. It is machined especially for phenolic, cuts quickly and won't wander.

BEST ANSWER:You've probably already used the product, by now, but I would say NO! The phenolic material is too brittle at 1/8". At the price you pay for these inserts, once you cut them down to your fitment, any break will render them worthless. Stick to wooden inserts. IMHO.

BEST ANSWER:You've probably already used the product, by now, but I would say NO! The phenolic material is too brittle at 1/8". At the price you pay for these inserts, once you cut them down to your fitment, any break will render them worthless. Stick to wooden inserts. IMHO.

BEST ANSWER:I used these on my grandfathers old (1940s) craftsman saw that I restored. The throat plate was aluminum and had bent over 70 years of use. I essentially had to route a lip on the underside of the insert. You may also have to do the same right where the blade exits so you can get full blade protrusion. The hardest part is getting the lip thickness right. I ended up needing a shim of painters tape on one side of one them to make it flush with the table.

BEST ANSWER:I used these on my grandfathers old (1940s) craftsman saw that I restored. The throat plate was aluminum and had bent over 70 years of use. I essentially had to route a lip on the underside of the insert. You may also have to do the same right where the blade exits so you can get full blade protrusion. The hardest part is getting the lip thickness right. I ended up needing a shim of painters tape on one side of one them to make it flush with the table.

I doubt if they will work on a Kobalt saw. You need 1/2 inch inset with stop for set screws to adjusr them to fit flush with your table. They work great for the Delta Unisaw and I am not sure what other saws they will fit.

BEST ANSWER:Alan C. You ask about size of set screws. I don't remember exactly; but, since you drill and tap your own I would think the only limiting factor is the size of the ears where the set screw contacts and the size of your tools available, eg. probably 1/4" because it is easier to see and adjust than 3/16" or 1/8" . I bought four new set screws at a local hardware. They fit nice and tight using my tap. I am far more satisfied with my throat plate than the original. It never needs adjustment. Good luck!

BEST ANSWER:Alan C. You ask about size of set screws. I don't remember exactly; but, since you drill and tap your own I would think the only limiting factor is the size of the ears where the set screw contacts and the size of your tools available, eg. probably 1/4" because it is easier to see and adjust than 3/16" or 1/8" . I bought four new set screws at a local hardware. They fit nice and tight using my tap. I am far more satisfied with my throat plate than the original. It never needs adjustment. Good luck!

Leveling screws are metric size M4-0.7. You could substitute 6-32 screws if you don't have metro taps, but you'd still have to countersink the holes. Buying Rockler's 34423 Phenolic Countersink Bit gets the job done in one step. I didn't, but considering tool wear, etc., that would be my. recommendation, especially if you plan to machine multiple inserts. Phenolic is tough stuff....

I believe the flathead screws that came with it were 4mm. They definitely weren't an SAE size. I ended up getting some 10-32 set screws separately (since I have a set of SAE tap and dies), drilled and tapped the throat plate to work with those, and was good to go from there.

BEST ANSWER:If your stock insert is less than 3 7/8" x 14" x 1/2", yes, it will fit. Use some double sided tape to attach your stock plate (topside down) to the phenolic blank, saw off the corners, then trim to size using your router and a flush trim bit. Be careful and use a starter pin on your router table. I have been using these blanks for years and they work well and look good, too. Don't forget to drill about a 1" hole on the near end for easy removal. Also, I made a new insert last week and used hot glue for leveling the plate instead of screws. Mark where the screws should be on the insert, put a good sized dollop of hot glue on each spot, carefully put the insert on the table and then press down with a straight edge on each end of the plate to level it. This may take two or three tries but it levels up the plate with less hassle. I have also made inserts for beveled cuts and for dado blades. Have fun and be safe.

BEST ANSWER:If your stock insert is less than 3 7/8" x 14" x 1/2", yes, it will fit. Use some double sided tape to attach your stock plate (topside down) to the phenolic blank, saw off the corners, then trim to size using your router and a flush trim bit. Be careful and use a starter pin on your router table. I have been using these blanks for years and they work well and look good, too. Don't forget to drill about a 1" hole on the near end for easy removal. Also, I made a new insert last week and used hot glue for leveling the plate instead of screws. Mark where the screws should be on the insert, put a good sized dollop of hot glue on each spot, carefully put the insert on the table and then press down with a straight edge on each end of the plate to level it. This may take two or three tries but it levels up the plate with less hassle. I have also made inserts for beveled cuts and for dado blades. Have fun and be safe.

It will fit very nicely. Just cut it exactly like the existing insert. Drill and tap the leveling holes in the exact same pattern as the original insert. I had to route out the bottom for the saw blade to fit. Or you can buy a 1" smaller, thin curf, saw blade to make the first cut. Make shire that the new insert is firmly clamped down for the cutting of the sawblade slot.

I have Delta craftsman saw and had to use the insert that came with saw as a template to form the new insert just like they show in the pictures that describe the insert. Not sure if unisaw has bigger insert than craftsman saw. I had to shave probably 1/4 inch all around to get it to fit my saw.

BEST ANSWER:I purchased this insert for my old Craftsman 10" table saw. I used the existing metal insert as a pattern.I cut the insert with my scroll saw and made the fine adjustments with a belt sander and some hand sanding.I got it to fit well. It works great giving me a tight fit to the saw blade. I hope this helps you.

BEST ANSWER:I purchased this insert for my old Craftsman 10" table saw. I used the existing metal insert as a pattern.I cut the insert with my scroll saw and made the fine adjustments with a belt sander and some hand sanding.I got it to fit well. It works great giving me a tight fit to the saw blade. I hope this helps you.

BEST ANSWER:I am not familiar with your model of Craftsman saw. I have a real old craftsman table saw that I used the insert on. I had to costume cut the insert to fit. I just used the existing metal insert as a template and sanded to get a tight fit. I placed weights on each end of the insert and raised the saw blade to get an exact slot cut. It works great!!

BEST ANSWER:I am not familiar with your model of Craftsman saw. I have a real old craftsman table saw that I used the insert on. I had to costume cut the insert to fit. I just used the existing metal insert as a template and sanded to get a tight fit. I placed weights on each end of the insert and raised the saw blade to get an exact slot cut. It works great!!

Reviews

Own a discontinued craftsman professional series table saw and went to change blade ant the pot metal insert broke into 5 pieces when I removed it. Found these universal inserts and once I shaped them to fit they worked great.

Great product. Easy to router shape to match factory insert dimensions. Made one for zero tolerance and one for dado set. Rabbet the edges for desired thickness while leaving the meat in the middle. I would recommend and buy again.

Great product! My first plate took some experimenting but is a pleasure to use. I made the second plate yesterday and solved the blade clearance problem. I simply routed a 3/16&quot; slot on the underside of the plate deep enough to provide clearance for the blade and then raised the blade to cut the regular slot. I did use a tap and die for the leveling screws. No problem.

Followed the instructions, now I have two perfect inserts. The drill bit worked well, given the hardness of the material, I used the slowest speed on my drill press and cleaned out the bit two to three times for each hole. Overall, excellent product.

The phenolic material is wonderful for this purpose and the drill bits, after taking the advise from Greg in Clinton, MA, worked fantastic. Saved me a bundle and I can make inserts for all my blades at much less cost. Highly recommended.

I bought this kit and had problems at first with the Countersink drill bit breaking after doing only one hole. Rockler was great at replacing these and after some experimenting with the drill bit speed, I can recommend using a speed of 250 RPM. If you use higher speeds, the bit may break.

This is great material. I would prefer to purchase a set that included a stock insert for the more popular saws. In my case, a Delta Unisaw. I can template router new ones. I would pay more to get a finished piece and stock to make two more This is great, heavy material. Nice coefficient of friction too!

I gave it four stars because for the most part, you can do exactly what Rockler says you can do with it. If you can afford to purchase pre-made inserts, I would do that. While the end result was good, I will not ever do this again. It takes a looooong time to do and I am always short on time. I would rather be building during my off time than making machine inserts.

The kit comes with quantity ten of 8-36 screws. No where does the packaging tell you that. I replaced those with 10-32 set screws because I didn't have a tap for 8-36 screws and I don't think the included screws are all that great in quality.

Don't just drill a hole and expect to have the screws cut the threads, tap them first. There are other stories on this board about people who did not tap first and then had to remove a broken screw. A tap at Lowes/HD is only about $6. Get that when you get the set screws to replace the soft junky screws in the package.

If you do not have a router table to reduce the thickness of the insert, you can just make a series of small shallow passes on your table saw. I used both a router table and table saw. I used a rabbiting bit to remove most of the material, but I didn't have a short straight cutter to remove the everything I needed, so for that I used the table saw.

In the included pictures, you can see the machine marks where I removed material using the router and where I used a table saw. If I had to do this over again, I would just set up a dado blade and remove the material using that.

Overall this worked as advertised, but you will need a bandsaw, router table, taps, double sided carpet tape, counter sink bit to recess the screws, and a drill press is a nice to have item.

In my pictures you can see the finished product and the set screws that I used.

probably a great product, I sent it back because the opening in my MUCH OLDER Craftsman table-saw is 14 1/2 inches and these are 14'' I was disappointed. If you have an OLDER saw table double check the size of the opening before ordering

Check the dimensions carefully prior to ordering. The insert was not even close to fitting my Porter Cable table saw. Also, the depth of your saw's insert must match perfectly with the depth of the Phenolic unit or you will have a hard time trying to get it to fit. Otherwise, it does appear to be a nice insert.

I rated this product &quot;very good&quot;, rather than &quot;excellent&quot;, only because it is 3/4&quot; too short to fully fit into my Ridgid R4511. The thickness is perfect with no shims. The material is very strong and rigid, with a nice smooth surface.For those with my model saw, be advised that a standard 10&quot; blade does not lower enough to clear the bottom surface of the blank insert plate. So this requires some careful setup to safely make the initial cut. In my case I secured the front of the trimmed blank with a screw and shimmed the outfeed end 1/2 to 3/4&quot;, clamped in-place before slowly raising the blade. There is probably a better way to do this (perhaps shim entire insert). After getting the intial cut to just clear the upper surface, I shut down, lowered the blade, removed the shim, and secured the insert flush with the table top, held down by the rip fence. The remainder of the process was simply turning back on the saw and raising the blade to the desired height. Raise slowly! And be prepared for a slight odor from the phenolic material as it is cut. A little further engineering will be required to tightly secure the rear (outfeed end) of the insert.This seems to be excellent material for this purpose. I simply wish at had been a little longer to fit my particular model of saw.

This material is very hard and smooth making it an excellent substrate for a table saw throat plate. I used this to build an insert for a Ridgid table saw. I bought this kit because the dimensions were nearly perfect for my saw and I needed a dado insert. These blocks are not 1/2 inch thick; they were 11/16 inch thick. (This makes a big difference when your plate needs to be 1/2 inch thick. Given the amount of machining that was required to reduce the thickness, I would not do this again for this particular saw. The project turned out fine on the top side (just don't peek at the bottom of the plate...pretty ugly due to the extensive routing marks).

I often wondered why a phenolic insert has not been available for the Bosch 4000 Table Saw, from anywhere. When I spotted this kit in the Rockler catalog, I said &quot;Great, now I can make one!&quot; Well, now I know why they have not been available. It took quite a bit of machine work to the underside of the insert to make a fit to the Bosch table (see photo). But, alas, I got-r-done and have a nice zero clearance insert. Thanks Rockler !

Level adjusting screws included were not of superior quality as evidenced by one of the heads of the screws breaking off during initial insertion of the screw in the phenolic. After making my own adjusters, the insert was placed in the table top and is currently in use...Very nice.

Product worked great on my Ridgid table saw after talking to your technical dept. they we're very helpful in getting it to fit Thanks a bunch.P.S. to guy with the Ridgid table just take your router with a straight bit and take a 1/16 off the bottom.

The phenolic material is excellent. The end result is also excellent. However, if you have a Delta saw table be prepared for extra work. When the saw blade is lowered as far as it can go the material is too thick to fit above the blade. You have to cut off 1/4 inch from the back of the phenolic block to allow that space needed. Then you can route the block to shape and route a 1/4 inch wide lip around the perimiter to allow the insert to fit into the 1/8 inch &quot;shelf&quot; in the table opening.

I bought a Jet Proshop Table saw last summer and bought these inserts a few weeks ago, assuming they would be oversized since I was going to cut to shape. However, they are only 3 7/8 and the throat on the Proshop is about 4 1/16. What good is an insert blank if it can't be sized for all models? It is long enough so I am making it work, but it is a bit frustrating.

I bought these inserts on a whim while at my local Rockler store. When I got them home I found that they were too short for my table saw. I own a Steel City 10 inch granite top saw with a riving knife. So, I was not able to use them. I wish that I could have, I priced out zero clearance inserts for my particular saw and they were $41.00 apiece. Maybe make these inserts about 3/4&quot; longer? Otherwise they would have worked great.

The phenolic itself is a fine material for the insert and the shape machined easily. The weakness of this kit is in the leveling screws. First of all, they are not self tapping and secondly, they are very low quality. You will probably break a few. I will use another method for leveling.

I was very interested in trying these inserts but they are too short to fit the Steel City Granite saws. It would be nice if they could includes a list of saws that it will (and won't ) work on.Editors's Note: Click on the &quot;More Info&quot; tab in this offer for sizing details.

Of the two blanks I recieved only one was usable, the other was bowed so bad the middle stuck up above the table by a good 3/16&quot; when the front and back were level with the top. The other one made a good dado insert. I will stick with UHMW.

I had no problem drilling and threading my leveling holes. Routing using my existing insert as a pattern wasn't a problem either ... though what a mess.Not sure what advantages phenolic has over plywood or hardwood ... time will tell. I have one more blank to cut.Bottom line ... same $$$ and stick with wood.

First of all, the product did not fit my saw, even though the sales associate assured me it would. Secondly, the Phenolic material played havoc with my carbide router bit. I'm going to stick with the tried and true wood inserts. These are too expensive and too much can go wrong with them, rendering them a waste of money. IMHO.

Not worth the effort or cost, in my opinion, at least for a JET Supersaw. Requires too much routing of the backside to provide relief for the leveling tabs and saw blade prior to cutting the slot. Also, purchasing special drill and router bits which decreases the effective savings. I recommend buying a pre-made insert specifically for your saw or making one out of plywood or hardwood. Material is so hard that you must be VERY careful drilling with conventional bits and driving the screws to avoid chipping out the material and shearing the screws.

I'd suggest you buy UHMW plastic instead. Making a ZCI from this stuff was a nightmare. Cutting it to fit was fine. Drilling and screwing the leveling screws was another story. The screws provided were not strong enough... three of them broke, the heads snapped off. Bought bigger screws. Redrilled. One driver broke trying to force the screw into the (perfectly sized) pilot hole. Screws stripped and had to be removed with vise grips. Screws stripped the threads made in the Phenolic stuff. Absolutely terrible stuff to screw into. Ended up thowing them out. Made ZCI's out of UHMW plastic instead. A breeze.